What's For Dinner? Week 4

Oooh wee! I've got a clean fridge and a craving for some yummy food! Hence, this has been one of our tastiest weeks in awhile! It's good to be excited to come to the dinner table every night and I've thoroughly enjoyed every bite.

An unusual feature of this week's menu: SIDE DISHES! Generally, when I'm meal planning for the week, I plan only the main dish and then just incorporate whatever fresh fruit, raw or steamed veggie, sliced cheese, bread, etc that we have available or that was on sale at the grocery store. But this week, I've really put some effort into side dishes!

Here's a quick list of our menu (remember, my cooking week generally runs from Saturday to Friday) and then I'll break it down. I made a whole slew of Weelicious recipes.
1) Saturday - Whole Wheat Oat Pancakes for breakfast. Pulled Pork Tacos with standard taco toppings plus homemade guacamole, and corn on the cob for dinner.
2) Sunday - Father's Day - picnic at the Riedeman's. I brought a dessert-type grape salad.
3) Monday - leftovers
4) Tuesday - Ginger Chicken Kebabs with a light Lemon Spaghetti side dish.
5) Wednesday - leftovers
6) Thursday - Turkey Sloppy Joes, pasta salad, zucchini coins, watermelon dices and Hawaiian popsicles for dessert.
7) Friday - graduation party - eating dinner there.

So here's what I did on Friday:
I always write out my menu as above with the understanding that I may flip flop or be flexible as needed. Then I try to write a to do list after reading through all menus and decide what all I can do in advance.

I planned the pulled pork tacos for Saturday night because I could turn my Crock Pot on myself (as opposed to having someone come to my house to turn it on since doing so before I leave work is way too long), and also because shredding the roast does take a little more time than I'm willing to devote on a week night. So I was able to kick it on a little before lunch time and enjoy the yummy aromas all afternoon. So Friday night, I got the herb rub together and patted it over the roast, placed it in the crock pot and dumped in the jar of salsa. Then I stuck the whole thing in the fridge until Saturday morning.

I made the guac entirely. Here is a shot of the ingredients before mixing. Craig said it was the best guacamole he's ever tasted.

Then, I placed a piece of plastic wrap right on top of the guac so that it was touching the entire top surface and pressed down to avoid air exposure. And with the plastic wrap inside and lid on, I put it in the fridge.

On Saturday early evening, after returning from the graduation party, Craig and Will went out to husk the corn while I shredded the pork.

Then we steamed the corn while I chopped up tomatoes and washed the lettuce. And finally, it all went on the table for dinner on Saturday. I got RAVE reviews from Craig over this meal, which is rare these days. He always has something to complain about.

For the kebabs, I cut up the pineapple chunks and pepper chunks and also mixed the marinade on Friday. I already had the chicken frozen so I just thawed it the day before and marinated it overnight on Monday night. Also on Monday, I prepped the pasta ingredients.

On Tuesday evening, I skewered the kebabs while Craig warmed the grill. I also got the water boiling for the spaghetti and that all came together quickly and easily. This is before grilling:

And here's the lemon spaghetti.

For Thursdays meal, I chopped broccoli and grated Parmesan for the pasta salad. The grape tomatoes would be halved once I assembled the pasta salad on Wednesday night (tonight). And I just shaved the kernels from two of our ears of corn from Saturday's dinner and added it to the broccoli container on Saturday.

I used bow tie pasta instead of whatever she used (I forget) and broccoli instead of asparagus just based on personal preference.

For the zucchini coins, I mixed the coating ingredients and made the Weelicious marinara sauce. Then I just sliced and coated the zucchini on Wednesday night (tonight).

These will be baked tomorrow night (Thursday) while I'm warming the sloppy joes on the stove top.

This is all I did for the sloppy joes on Friday night - chop the veggies. The ground turkey was frozen so all that was required tonight (Wednesday) was to thaw the turkey, saute the veggies and cook the turkey through, and dump in the sauce and Worcestershire. I didn't take a final picture in my haste to finish this meal prep and get it out to the garage fridge before the storm hit. We have just had some crazy weather these past few weeks! But now tomorrow, it only has to be warmed on the stove top.

Okay, moving on to non-dinner menu items. I just LOVE doing pancakes with the kids for breakfast on Saturday. Will is starting to expect pancakes and a library trip every Saturday now and will basically request them in that order when he knows the week is coming to an end. I like having leftover pancakes available on Sunday and sometimes even the first couple days of the work week to pack for Sophie's breakfast at the sitter's. The whole wheat oat pancakes turned out so much better this time. I wonder why? I don't think I did anything different, but they were just thicker and heartier. I prefer to make the batter on Friday night and get out the electric griddle (what an awesome kitchen tool!) so that I only have to heat it up and pour once the kids wake up on Saturday morning.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! Fuel their brains with some fresh, summer berries along side.

Here is that grape salad I took to the picnic. Yes, it has grapes and that's a healthy food. But this dish is hands down a dessert. The rest of the ingredients include cream cheese, cool whip, sour cream (all light), a can of honey roasted peanuts, 4-6 Butterfinger candy bars chopped up (I used 6) and some brown sugar. You stir it all together and I reserved some of the candy bars for a topping.

Okay, that's it. I'm hoping to do a few special things in the kitchen this weekend with Will as weather and time allows.

Happy eating!